


my fruits are for taking (pink)

by pastel



Series: closer, closer, i’m closer (to you) [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, M/M, Robots, Space Gardens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-11-02 10:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20710358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastel/pseuds/pastel
Summary: "Our perceptual apparatus is attuned to the evaluation of changes or differences rather than to the evaluation of absolute magnitudes. When we respond to attributes such as brightness, loudness, or temperature, the past and present context of experience defines an adaptation level, or reference point, and stimuli are perceived in relation to this reference point. Thus, an object at a given temperature may be experienced as hot or cold to the touch depending on the temperature to which one has adapted."AUTUMN 2084, EARTH 3 LEVEL 1—Renjun makes a delivery.





	my fruits are for taking (pink)

**Author's Note:**

> literally dont know what it is about this universe that makes me write it so quickly...... Anyway, i hope u r enjoying it as much as i am. everything will become clearer with time, though after pumping both of these out over 48 hours i might take a short break from this series to work on other things. thanks again to mel for betaing!
> 
> also, this Is part of a series, so i would recommend reading the previous fic, the price of your greed, first but i don't think it's necessary since we're not really moving linearly anyway??
> 
> title is from holy terrain by fka twigs  
summary quote is from prospect theory by kahneman and tversky

Renjun opens his eyes for the first time at 11:28PM on what will later be known as Earth 1. This is the first time that he breaks the law, but is not the last.

A human man hovers over him. He looks—Renjun’s processor completes the search in a slow 0.83 seconds—‘distraught’, ‘worried’, or perhaps ‘hopeful’?

“Renjun?” The man asks. The biological simulator running on 0.3% of Renjun’s memory makes him blink.

“I am Renjun,” he replies.

The man smiles. “I know. Do you know who I am?”

Renjun registers his voice as ‘gentle’. The blood that had been running under the surface of the man’s skin in response to his emotions flows back towards his heart—Renjun can sense it. However, he cannot find the man’s identity in his databases, and something is blocking him from connecting to the internet.

“No,” Renjun replies.

The man’s smile does not change. “My name is Dr. Sicheng Dong, but you can call me Dr. Dong. I’m your creator.”

Renjun is compelled to blink again.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Dong,” Renjun extends his hand as his behavior library tells him to. Dr. Dong’s smile widens; Renjun now labels him as ‘joyous.’ 

Dr. Dong touches his hand, and Renjun wakes up.

Yukhei is holding the cord to Renjun’s charger in his hand, looking guilty and pleased in equal measure.

“Sleep well?” He asks, offering Renjun his hand for help getting off the charging platform. Renjun doesn’t take it. His joints creak as he lands—he’ll have to hydrate soon.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to ask,” Yukhei begins, coiling Renjun’s charger back up on the platform, “Do androids really dream of electric sheep?”

Renjun scoffs, visual memories of Dr. Dong and his silly pink hair at the end of his life popping up immediately. He terminates them as soon as he recognizes what they are.

“We don’t dream, Yukhei,” Renjun lies, face impassive. He can do it because it’s not a lie, technically, even though he recognizes it as one. 

Yukhei makes a face, but shrugs. “Coulda sworn you were sleeptalking, but okay.”

Renjun almost asks—“What did I say?”, the desperation, _ embarrassment _ evident in his voice —but he holds himself back, crosses his arms. 

“Why did you wake me up?” He asks instead, “I’m only 69% charged.”

Yukhei snorts out a laugh. “Ha! Sixty-nine!”

Renjun frowns for real. He’s only functioning at three-quarters capacity because of Yukhei. 

“Okay, okay,” Yukhei says once Renjun’s silence has grown too icy. “I need you to do some deliveries, come on.” He gestures for Renjun to follow him out of Renjun’s room. They walk down the spotless hallways of Yukhei’s second floor, past the massive portraits of Yukhei and his spouse on the stairway, all the way down to Yukhei’s Level 0 greenhouse.

“A plant?” Renjun asks, automatically adjusting to the sudden increase in humidity.

“You know it,” Yukhei replies, leading Renjun further down the aisles of his collection of exotic and endangered and occasionally illegal Earth flora. They walk all the way to the back of the room, to a singular plant contained in a glass case, rather than any of the large, sprawling troughs that hold the rest of Yukhei’s garden.

It’s unassuming, low to the ground. Small, round leaves. Could be anything, and then—

Renjun sees it, hidden beneath the foliage. A fruit like a pink pearl, almost glowing in the greenhouse’s hazy humidity. It’s no larger than the size of Renjun’s thumb, beautiful in the same way a baby’s cheek or a perfect cloud at sunrise is. He wants to touch it, and yet he is afraid of ruining it.

“An oysterfruit,” Yukhei breathes, grin audible. “One of thirty-three in this entire sector of the galaxy. I had it shipped all the way from Lalande.”

Renjun looks up at him immediately. “You want—you want me to take this on my bike?”

Oysterfruit is not native to any Earth-adjacent planets, and its sensitivity to oxygen has rendered any transport out of nitrogen-based ecosystems illegal. That, and the hallucinogenic, aphrodisiac qualities of its fruit. Renjun has no idea how he got his hands on a plant, much less a fertile one.

Yukhei only nods. “It’s a gift.”

Calculations take over Renjun’s headspace—who could deserve such a dangerous, potent gift from Yukhei, of all people?

He comes up dry. There is no rational option, bounded or not.

“For Mark,” Yukhei fills in, “He’s back in town.”

If Renjun had a throat that could go dry, had a throat that was meant for more than storing the machinery that allows him to make sound, it would have turned into the sprawling Amazonian desert, crackling in its desiccation despite the humidity of the greenhouse. However, he does not, so instead all his processes stop for 1.44 seconds. It’s not long enough for Yukhei to notice, but to Renjun, who is always running, always going, always doing _ something _, it feels like a strike of lightning through his entire system.

He blames it on his low battery.

“You want me to take this to Mark.”

He doesn’t say it like a question, but Yukhei nods like he’s just asked if he had a good lunch. He nods like Yukhei.

“Yeah, do you think you could get it done by dinner? It’s not a long drive to the Naturarium.”

Yukhei’s right, and it’s not like Renjun can say _ no _.

“How should I take it?” He asks. The case—the oysterfruit itself—looks so delicate, Renjun doesn’t know how he’s going to take it halfway across the district without making some kind of mistake.

Yukhei’s still casual. He smiles at Renjun, “I dunno, Google it?”

It’s not like Renjun can look up ‘how to transport oysterfruit’ on the internet without alerting at least _ some _ authorities, so he redirects more of his processor energy to his creativity simulator. At the very least, Yukhei helps Renjun disconnect the plant from the nitrogen pumps he’s hidden behind some other large green leaves, and carries it all the way to the garage.

Renjun plugs himself into his bike, pulls his grass-green helmet on. Yukhei places the oysterfruit in his lap, the sharp edges of the glass case digging into the silicone skin of Renjun’s thighs despite the padded travel casing Yukhei’s zipped over it. 

“Tell Mark to come over for dinner sometime!” Yukhei calls as Renjun kicks into gear. Renjun salutes him as well as he can without disrupting the balance of the fruit. 

And he’s off.

It’s mid-afternoon in the city, orange sky and its twin suns just barely visible through the jungle of buildings. Advertisements blare over their electronic surfaces, the bass thrum of life and the treble buzz of electricity playing in harmony to create the telltale symphony that is Earth 3. The famous chaos of Earth 3, home to the highest rent and highest crime rate among all of humanity’s conquest planets. Home to Renjun, and now Mark Lee.

Renjun turns the filters on his helmet up higher, blocking out the clutter. The ads disappear, the sounds fizzle out. He merges straight onto a highway on Suplevel 7, where only bots drive because the atmosphere is too thin and polluted. The rapid ascent from Level 0—climbing twenty-two levels in as many minutes—would kill a human, even with all the gear Renjun’s wearing.

It’s easy driving from there on out, as he connects to all the other bots on the road and lets autopilot take over.

It always feels a little strange, to hop on the cloud—to lose control of his body as an algorithm at once more simple and more complex than he directs his hands to move in sync with everyone else to optimize all their travel—but there’s nothing Renjun can do about it. It’s freeing in its own way, too, as it allows him to steer single-handed and use the other to cradle the oysterfruit.

Seven minutes remaining, he thinks.

Streaks of creamsicle clouds pass him by at 500 kilometers per hour, right at the speed limit. He takes in a breath, just because he can. In a separate part of his mind, disconnected from the cloud, he ponders Mark’s return to Earth 3. It doesn’t have the most robust Naturarium, or much nature at all—in more ways than one, Earth 3 is a planet of metal and glass. He wonders if Mark’s here to stay, or if he’s just stopping in briefly like he had for Yukhei’s wedding, where he and Renjun first met.

He takes the descent from the highway down to Level 3, where the Naturarium is located, slower than the cloud tells him to, but he disconnects as quickly as he can. 

It’s a marvel both aesthetically and architecturally, twice as wide as most blocks in the center of the city and stretching higher than the skyscrapers. A dome of chemically reinforced glass protects its interior from the pollution in the sky, and allows a peek at the structures within. In the very center of the Naturarium there is a smooth dome, the gardens where visitors can enter, and sprouting up haphazardly throughout the area are the spire-shaped sanctuaries for non-oxygen or carbon-based species. That is where the oysterfruit will go, no doubt.

The rest of the Naturarium exists all on Level 1, a sprawling, near-feral preserve of Earth 1 life, accessible only to employees and researchers. If this is the second-worst Naturarium among the Earths, Renjun cannot imagine what the rest are like.

He has memories from Earth 1, of course, but by the time he could record memories to his hard drive the planet was far past its ecological prime, descending quickly into being a barren land like Earth 3.

Renjun pulls up at the back entrance of the Naturarium, slides his face shield down. A guard-bot stands there, and as he approaches Renjun clears all unnecessary processes except ‘Delivery for Mark Lee’ from his mind so the bot will not suspect anything when it scans him.

Well — he doesn’t clear them, but tucks them away into a well-encrypted pocket of storage that would only reveal itself if Renjun was reduced to bits and pieces of metal and wire.

“Delivery for Mark Lee,” he says to the bot.

“Sender?” The bot asks in reply. Renjun makes a note to include that from the beginning next time.

“Wong Yukhei,” Renjun says, letting the syllables fall out of his throat more like the beeps of a simpler machine than real words. However, Yukhei’s name alone is enough to throw the bot off —its movements stutter for a moment, but it asks for confirmation anyway. “Wong Yukhei?”

“Yes,” Renjun replies.

It’s not like the bot can say no, at this point. Yukhei is among the most powerful people on Earth 3. Renjun does his best to look unassuming, like any other delivery-bot, instead of one of the few bots in the entire universe who were still outfitted with emotion simulators. Not for the first time, he’s thankful for the outer modifications Yukhei had paid for when he bought Renjun off Earth 2, the sanding away of the old-fashioned joints and yellowing silicone skin that screamed _ Gen-One _.

He’s practically indistinguishable from top of the line bots now, and from humans. That’s where Renjun lives, in the uncanny valley between the ever-rising peaks of humanity and technology. It’s not the most comfortable place to be, its population is dwindling by the year as Gen-One and Two bots are ever so kindly _ retired _, but it’s not like Renjun had a choice in the matter. 

For a bot like Renjun, ‘choice’ is the same thing as an out-of-bounds error.

“Gate opening,” the guard-bot says at last. “Now forwarding directions to Mark Lee’s office.”

Renjun accepts the file, downloads it to his short-term memory. Even as a courier he’s not allowed in the grand expanse of the Naturarium proper, so he rides on a service path overlooking it all that runs around the edge of the glass barrier, located right where Level 2 is in the rest of the city. Four roads going in towards the visitor gardens split the air into quarters, with smaller roads forking off to reach the non-oxygen spires.

Renjun turns right, driving down the gentle slope towards the center. His directions lead him to a utility elevator large enough that he doesn’t have to get off his bike. It rises and rises, taking Renjun to the eighth floor—and Mark’s office.

But he doesn’t even have to step out of the elevator to meet Mark, because the man is standing right in the doorway when it opens. He’s holding an empty water-bottle.

Shock overtakes his features.

“Renjun?” He asks, unmoving. Renjun forgot he still had the face-shield of his helmet up, allowing Mark to see him.

“Mark Lee,” Renjun replies. Mark doesn’t move, and he doesn’t either. They stand there, looking at each other.

Mark looks different. It’s his—the angle at which his hair falls against his forehead, the 12% shift in the discoloration of his eyebags—but it’s not any of that, either. Something about Mark, something intangible to Renjun’s sensors but that weighs heavy on his processor, is different.

The door of the elevator begins to close. 

In a burst of movement, Mark sticks his arm in the way of the door, sending it sliding back into the wall. “Here, wait, uh,” he starts, jumping out of the doorway, “Shit, you should, um, probably —lemme get out of your way.”

Renjun hops off his bike and wheels it forward into the 700 lux brightness of the office hallway. He takes his helmet off, but he’s still plugged in to the bike. He looks at Mark again, trying to puzzle out what’s so _ different _.

“Okay, um, I was gonna get more water, so, uh, just, gimme a minute?” Mark asks, shaking his empty bottle before hopping into the once-again closing elevator. He leaves Renjun in the quiet of the hallway, holding onto his bike with one hand and the oysterfruit in the other.

Maybe it’s that Mark is more… frantic, than he used to be, but no, Mark’s always had this awkward energy. Is it the way he meets Renjun’s gaze, now? Uncharacteristically solemn, like the very sight of Renjun hurts him?

Renjun unplugs himself from his bike, leans it gently against the office wall. He cradles the oysterfruit case in both hands.

The world has been loud long before Renjun came into being, for the first time he understands what humans mean when they say that silence is deafening.

The elevator dings back up to the eighth floor, and Mark steps out, water-bottle filled but gaze just as longing.

“Yukhei sent me,” Renjun says before Mark even has the chance to speak. He wants to go home, go back to the sweet numbness of his charging pad and dreams of Dr. Dong’s smile. As much as the sight of Mark—Mark, still alive after his months on foreign planets, his months disconnected from everything that makes up Renjun’s being—sets something deep in the center of his empty chest alight, Renjun wants to go home.

“Oh?” Mark asks, taking a sip of water just to give himself something to do.

“He has a gift,” Renjun adjusts his grip on the covered oysterfruit, “for your return.” He holds it out to Mark.

Mark tucks his water bottle under his elbow and reaches out for the case.

Their hands touch for—Renjun doesn't care to calculate it.

Mark’s skin is so warm, so human. His heart is beating faster than it should, but Renjun already knew that, could already feel it in the air.

“From Yukhei,” Renjun repeats, a close-mouthed smile suddenly stretched across his lips. He’s not sure why he just said that.

Or why he’s smiling like this, lips pressed so tightly a warning flashes in the bottom of his vision.

Mark doesn’t say anything.

Just looks at him, his stare so familiar and yet so, so strange.

Renjun plugs himself into his bike, wheels it around in the hallway. Steps into the elevator. Presses the button.

As the door slides shut, he watches Mark unzip the oysterfruit’s glass chamber from its travel casing. It distracts him from the unreadable set of Mark’s face, the darkness in his eyes.

The fruit is so pink.

**Author's Note:**

> contact me on [twt](https://twitter.com/jenorising) & [cc](https://curiouscat.me/uglyfics)
> 
> as usual, please leave a comment or kudo if u enjoyed!!


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